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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492640">ready to grow young again</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoshiwrites/pseuds/shoshiwrites'>shoshiwrites</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Band of Brothers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Fix-It, also pls dont ask me why they have the same name. it was 2012. i honestly cannot tell you, and then the homework procrastination took over, anyway this is for my toye/war correspondent oc over on ff, except for that i dont hate it and im starved for attention, im sorry but its weird calling him joseph, not entirely sure why im posting it here at all, that i cant actually recommend bc im rewriting it, this entire thing is just 'it's about the tenderness', was literally just thinking 'what if joe was there the whole war'</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 21:40:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27492640</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/shoshiwrites/pseuds/shoshiwrites</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Did you ever think we’d end up like this?</i>
</p><p>Fix-it AU drabbles for my Toye/Correspondent OC fic When the War Came.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Joseph Toye/Original Female Character(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>15</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title from bruce springsteen's "no surrender." </p><p>warning for brief/somewhat oblique holocaust mentions and v. brief descriptions of injuries. </p><p>based solely on the tv show/the portrayals therein, which i do not own. i did steal lip's whole getting sick in haguenau deal for jo though, sry lip.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I.</p><p><em>All this for one lousy piece of shrapnel</em>, she thinks. <em>Nine days off the line</em>. Nine days in warmer rooms, with hot food. Coffee without black sludge at the bottom. She might have tried to enjoy it if she hadn’t been scared out of her mind, of being sent back to the States, of being gone from Easy altogether. It’d taken Sink hollering down the phone and a week of her bitching until brass decided it was all more trouble than she was worth. How quickly she'd healed up made it clear that it was all a ploy, but at least it was one that had failed.</p><p>It’s snowing the morning her Jeep pulls up to the encampment. Faces are muted, drawn. Pale. Every adjective of cold. There’s a new feeling, like pushing against some kind of force field, and she doesn’t quite get it, or doesn’t quite want to, until she walks over to the chow line. Until she sees Joe a few paces ahead without Bill. Until she sees Malarkey sitting alone, and all the anger drains out of her like blood.</p><p>“Jesus, thought they’d yanked you for good,” Lieb says, and she feels like crying.</p><p>Yards away, stumps stand splintered by artillery. The snow, tiny flakes now.</p><p>“Not a chance.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>II.</p><p>She doesn’t ask Joe if he was there, and he doesn’t offer. The deep cut above his brow, puckered skin, purple cresting the arc of his cheekbone, tells her as much. </p><p>“Heard Sink on the phone last week,” he says as they sit in their foxhole, teeth clenched with cold. “Pretty sure Berlin did too, come to think of it.”</p><p>If she told him how she’d sat there in that building, eyes aflame, refusing a shower out of spite for the first three days, he might laugh. Until the smell of her hair, matted at the back of her neck, had finally gotten to her; if she’d had a pair of scissors she’d’ve lopped it all off in that chair. Standing under the lukewarm water she’d untangled each knot, washed the grease away with bar soap. Examined her own scars with all the charm of a field surgeon, under the ugly green light. Felt the pressure points of her shoulders, struggled to hold herself upright. She doesn’t know what he’d say if she told him she’d imagined him there, too. </p><p>He doesn’t say <em> you came back</em>, knows she’d be insulted by it. But it’s the truest thing he can think of in that moment. He doesn’t say <em> you came back </em>because he hadn’t expected anything else. Couldn’t have let himself think anything else. He can only bow his head closer to hers, a clean face still raw from the cold, unruly brows and curls, the circles under her eyes matching his own. The youngest he’s ever looked to her, with those circles. Twenty-five, in a few months. About a year older than her. </p><p>“You smell good,” he says, and all she can do is smile.</p><p>“New perfume from Paris, eau de clean water.”</p><p>He can feel her breath as she presses a kiss to his cheek, the first warm thing he’s known all winter. </p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>III.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There are even fewer words by the time they get to the stone chapel. She doesn’t have to look long at his face, reddened eyes and sloped shoulders, to know that the worry’s finally getting to him, the guilt beneath it. He holds onto her like she’s the last good thing personified; she feels hollow at the thought. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>No one bats an eye that night when his arm’s around her, when she’s pressed against his side in the pew, both hunched over from exhaustion. They pass cigarettes between cracked hands and leave their questions at the door. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Chapter 4</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>IV.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>In Haguenau it’s all boredom, except for when it isn’t. And mud. Webster looks at her like she’s a ghost, like he thought she’d be gone by now, and Jones, bless him, can’t stop tripping over all his </span>
  <em>
    <span>ma’ams</span>
  </em>
  <span> and apologies. She comes down with a beast of a cold and they all but throw her in a back bedroom, with clean sheets and a bottle of god-knows-what from the basement. Joe’s sure it’s pneumonia, but she doesn’t let him near enough to check. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’ll pass,” she croaks, another cough rising her throat. “‘N get lost, I don’t want you catching this thing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He eyes her warily, sits himself down in a chair by the door. “Just forget I’m here.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Chapter 5</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>V.</p><p>When regiment decides they need a prisoner run, <em> Jesus fuck</em>, she’s still too sick to get out of bed. Would they have sent her as translator? Probably not. Probably would’ve kept her this side of the river anyway, a show of goodwill after Sink’s hissy fit last month. She sleeps like the dead, like she hasn’t in years, surrounded by sour-faced portraits and peeling green wallpaper. Joe stomps back up around three in the morning, dust on his shoulders, <em> Jesus you’re warm</em>, and all she can do is reach blindly for the bottle on the floor. </p><p>“Want some?”</p><p>He grimaces. “All you, sweetheart.”</p><p>She cracks it open and takes a swig, brandy sliding down her throat, and replaces it next to her. Kirschwasser. Cherries. Not bad. </p><p>“You know,” she says, her voice light and feverish. “I think you were right about the pneumonia.”</p><p>He almost cracks a smile. “No shit.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>“You want me to get Doc?”</p><p>“No, just pass me that bottle again. Please.”</p><p>He raises his eyebrows, but does as he’s told.</p><p>“Sure you don’t want some?”</p><p>“Next time.”</p><p>A few more swigs and she’s sinking back into the sheets. She feels his fingertips on her back as she buries her head in the pillow.</p><p>“Get some sleep, sweetheart.”</p><p>“Mmmph.” She raises an arm weakly behind her. “You too, get some sleep.”</p><p>He does crack a smile now. “Yes ma’am.” </p><p>She’s sprawled across the sheets, shirt damp, bare arm flopped over the mattress. ID bracelet heavy on her wrist. </p><p>“Joe?” She’s clearly sleep-talking at this point, mumbling into the pillow. </p><p>“Yeah?”</p><p>“I love you.” </p><p>He rockets back to Toccoa in that moment, her hands shaking with anger after the drumming out ceremony. How they’d rested still in her lap as they talked in Albourne, sitting on the stone wall. How much he’d wanted to kiss her then, as a promise, as a prayer. Forward to D-Day, to the relief in her eyes after Brécourt. How his own relief could’ve brought him to his knees. That sunny day along the English coast, the way she’d reached for him. The night he’d awoken in Holland to clear moonlight, the sweep of her collarbone and bare shoulders. Naked in each other’s arms, a lifetime ago. </p><p>How he'd give anything to climb in beside her now, hold her until her fever breaks.</p><p>She’ll never remember this in the morning. </p><p>“I love you too, Josie.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Chapter 6</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>VI.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And her fever does break, sometime in the early hours. Doc calls it a miracle. Luz tosses her a Hershey bar to celebrate. “Don’t spend it all in one place.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She sits on a crate breaking the chocolate into pieces, waxy sweetness on her tongue. Joe proffers a pack of Juicy Fruit and she gets him to stop a second, hands him a piece of the bar. A shaft of sunlight rests on their shoulders, pale through the shredded curtains.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You got something on your face,” he says when they’re done, and she narrows her eyes at him, oldest trick in the book, but she sits perfectly still as he wipes the corner of her mouth with his thumb. Her eyes are the color of black walnut, same as the dresser in the back bedroom, same as the warm summer earth in Reading. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Should probably get a move on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure thing.”</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Chapter 7</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>VII.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Germany means she starts getting used to the small things, ceramic coffee cups and a real typewriter and dry boots. She’s started to feel more useful too, proper translating mostly, infinitely preferable to running interference between Luz and whichever local fräulein he’d decided to offend that day. All that crumbling resistance Nix’d talked about meant they could feel some measure of relief, some kind of feeling that maybe if they were careful they might actually make it out of this damn thing alive. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At a forest clearing all thoughts of creature comforts evaporate. Shock. Shock without thought, with horror fast behind. Saviors they'll never be, never have been, a decade of headlines blaring in her brain, </span>
  <em>
    <span>TURNED AWAY REFUSED TURNED AWAY TURNED AWAY</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She writes that night possessed, demonic, pretending she still has words. Lying to herself in that pretending. Until shame burns down to silence, rage to unsettled quiet, and she weeps. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Chapter 8</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>VIII.</p>
<p>She writes letters to Bill while Joe interrupts with his own bulletins, swatting away his arm until it comes to rest on her shoulder, and she reaches a hand up to lace her fingers with his. The room is quiet, empty of others, when she turns and kisses him, cigarette smoke faint on their lips.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Chapter 9</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>IX.</p>
<p>
  <span>“Did you ever think we’d end up like this?” she asks, voice still husky with sleep. Lying together in the cold sunrise of late March he smiles, his fingers tracing lazy lines along her arm, under her breast. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure as hell hoped so,” he says, and she can feel the laughter in his ribcage. He kisses the top of her head, her dark curls, his voice a little quieter now. “Did you?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What do you think?” she says, reaching up to caress the side of his face.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Look, the first time I saw you you had a ring on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It takes her a minute to remember, but she does, and she laughs. “Jesus, it’s been a long time.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Found out eventually though.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Good thing you did.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“From fucking Guarno, like two months in. Were you ever even gonna tell me?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Was pretty hard not to,” she says, giggling. “After I saw you in those PT shorts.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Their laughter evaporates in the empty chill of the billet, the air still as he leans down to kiss her again. </span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0010"><h2>10. Chapter 10</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>X.</p>
<p>
  <span>The next week brings a caravan up a mountain, dirt-caked Corcorans treading through dark rooms, across stone floors. Nothing has felt as surreal as Berchtesgaden, that is, until they hear that the Germans have surrendered.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0011"><h2>11. Chapter 11</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>XI.</p><p>The tears are immediate, running hot down her cheeks. If he’s surprised too he doesn’t show it, and as he opens his arms with something like laughter, <em> c’mere sweetheart</em>, she immediately obeys. </p><p>“Fuck,” she hiccups, and with his joy she sees his own eyes are red. Every wound inflicted on him, every mark, <em> surrendered</em>. They can’t hurt him like that anymore. She doesn’t kiss him there, in front of everyone, just clutches his jacket between her fingers, letting the relief wash over her.</p><p>Later, after a few too many sips of champagne she’ll find herself in his lap, though no one bats an eye, not today. When Speirs walks in she almost falls over trying to get up, his <em> as you were </em> practically a snort. Even later, when Joe walks her back to her billet, it will feel like Holland, his hands at her waist in the doorway.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0012"><h2>12. Chapter 12</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>XII.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The mountain sunlight is something else, lightening her hair, casting shadows on freckled arms and legs. She lays out by the water in navy swimsuit bottoms, an old t-shirt knotted at the front. The cold of the Ardennes is a blink away, but sometimes it’s harder to remember, here. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At checkpoints she waves cars on, directs traffic, settles into routine. She begins to count on a certain look from the civilian wives and daughters. Indignation, confusion, some kind of betrayal, the latter of which always leaves her feeling vaguely nauseous. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Joe watches her spar, back and forth between civilian families and with Webster, usually at the same time. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>"Listen, Web, all I'm saying is it wouldn't kill him to use an adverb every once in a while," she says, slamming a trunk closed. "Spice things up a bit." Rapid-fire German directed at the driver, some kind of argument. "Though I guess charging German batteries and singlehandedly liberating Paris might leave you a little strapped for time." Something about passekartes. "Now, Gellhorn-"</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She argues each baseball call with Luz from the sidelines, shouting statistics about Mel Ott or Lefty Grove until Perco threatens to shove a glove in her mouth. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m European! </span>
  </em>
  <span>she protests when informed of misremembered rules. </span>
  <em>
    <span>You’re from Pittsburgh! </span>
  </em>
  <span>Joe shouts across the diamond, laughter scattered across the field.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0013"><h2>13. Chapter 13</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>XIII.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There’s no new ship-out date yet, all the vets without enough points are back on drills in the meantime. That means both of them, barely. And Joe can barely hide his hope too, that she’ll be held back in Austria on some kind of journalist business, safe away on this continent they’d marched across, now come to rest.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“They can try,” she says, even though they’ve all seen the newsreels that leave them silent, islands upon airfields upon islands. Her stomach churns at the thought of him there, and it’s hard to know what scares her more, going herself or watching him go, without her.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It’s been harder lately too to ignore the thought of returning Stateside. She’s gotten letters from Frankie straight through, and Frankie’s tone is light but Jo swallows harder with each new address, each new question. The way it all seems to be getting away from her, how the red tack of home seems to move farther with each word. And she’d always thought she knew where home was, back in Philadelphia, but even that seems in doubt. Especially as she watches Joe, cleaning his rifle or polishing his boots, face softer in the sun.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0014"><h2>14. Chapter 14</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>XIV.</p><p>Kaprun is still sunny but time still creeps. Restlessness, and the darkness that comes with it. They find an empty back balcony and as the air grows colder she finds herself feeling smaller, small enough to admit that she’s afraid. <em> Afraid of what</em>, he asks, and even though she knows her heart doesn’t truly believe it she says it anyway, <em> afraid of going home</em>, she says, flicking ash off the railing. <em> Afraid of going home and never seeing you again. </em></p><p>The last rays of light illuminate pine trees far across the lake. She doesn’t pull her jacket closer, too caught in her own head.</p><p>“Afraid of never seeing me again,” he repeats, and she can hear how absurd it sounds, can hear the deep hurt in his voice. "What kind of person do you think I am?”</p><p>And something rises in her chest then about war and wartime and distraction, desperation disguised as love, but one look at his face and she knows, has always known, that the way he holds her is no empty kind of promise.</p><p>“Do you really think that?” he asks, dusk shadowing his face, “because if you do, then…” His voice trails off, cigarette long forgotten. “Then what the fuck are we doing?”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she says, words and tears catching in her throat. “I didn’t mean it like that.”</p><p>At that his face softens, but she can still see the pain beneath. “It's just… it’s been so long,” she says. “Since we’ve been home.”</p><p>“Do you remember what you said to me in Haguenau?”</p><p><em> Probably not, </em> she wants to say, <em> considering the fever and the booze</em>, but she doesn’t.</p><p>“What did I say?” she asks softly.</p><p>His voice is quiet now, too. “That you loved me.”</p><p>It shouldn’t be a surprise to her, that she’d said that, after all these years. After each look, and each touch, each moment of relief. </p><p>“Did you mean it?” His eyes now are the darkest she’s ever seen them. </p><p><em> Now you’re the one saying stupid things</em>, she wants to say, but she doesn’t.</p><p>“Answer me.”</p><p>“Yes,” she says, and she’s never been more sure of anything. “Yes."</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0015"><h2>15. Chapter 15</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>XV.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’ll be okay,” he says, trying to convince himself just as much as her, looking out at the mountains. “We’ll be okay.” He holds her then like he hasn’t before, like she might break.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t ask him how he knows, doesn’t ask for any proof. In the trees a bird chirps, joined soon by a small chorus.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later that night, when she can’t sleep, she finds him sitting up on the same balcony, face lit by a cigarette’s tiny flame. They walk back to her billet together, tangle limbs in the small bed, wait for the morning to come.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0016"><h2>16. Chapter 16</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>XVI.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wakes before she does, early light and the soft scent of pine. In his pocket, what he’s been carrying since England. It’d seemed crazy back then, ridiculous, and maybe it is still crazy now, but now when she wakes it’s next to him, reaching her hand out to his.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t have time to ask him what he’s holding, sitting on the edge of the bed, before she can see it herself. A gold band, scored by small chevrons, glinting in a beam of light from the window. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she says </span>
  <em>
    <span>yes</span>
  </em>
  <span> it will be the first thing she wears that morning, followed by his lips on her skin, everywhere.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0017"><h2>17. Chapter 17</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>XVII.</p><p>Their happiness effervesces, mixed with relief, with <em> holy shit we made it, </em> with sunlight glinting off her hair. They’d tried to keep it a secret even with the ring on a chain around her neck, though they both should have known better, Nix with his <em> crazy kids </em> comments and Harry somehow still surprised, <em> no one tells me anything around here</em>, before slapping Jo on the back.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0018"><h2>18. Chapter 18</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>XVIII.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Think we’re heading out soon,” he says, looking down at her head on his stomach, her mess of dark hair. It might be the last time he’ll ever say that, and it wouldn’t be too soon. Boats and trains stretch ahead, miles of city and fields. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>She raises her head, turns to face him, cheeks burnished pink. “Oh?” Kisses the curve of his ribcage, a freckle on his sternum. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Should probably get a move on.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Sure thing.” </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if by some miracle any of this intrigued u feel free to come say hi on tumblr <a href="https://www.pomprincesse.tumblr.com">@pomprincesse</a> / <a href="https://www.shoshiwrites.tumblr.com">@shoshiwrites</a> / <a href="https://www.shoshimakesstuff.tumblr.com">@shoshimakesstuff</a></p></blockquote></div></div>
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